Via Dhamma Wheel // Cultivating Compassion

 

RIGHT INTENTION Cultivating Compassion Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward will become the basis on which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion, any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62)  The characteristic of compassion is promoting the allaying of suffering. (Vm 9.93)

Reflection Compassion is not an innate disposition but a skill to be learned and cultivated. Our capacity for compassion is innate, but whether or not it is expressed has to do with how we train ourselves to behave in the world. Cruelty is as natural as compassion, something demonstrated often in human history. But we, right now, can choose to care about others and to alleviate their suffering. The choosing to care is itself the practice. Daily Practice The value of compassion for others is obvious. They are comforted, made to feel safe, and are often given what they need to feel better. The value of compassion for oneself is subtler. It helps mold your personality and character in a healthy way and blocks any chance of its opposite, cruelty, manifesting. Practice caring when you see people or other beings suffering. Then notice how you are changed by this caring. Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

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Via Dhamma Wheel // Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering

 

RIGHT VIEW
Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering

What is the origin of suffering? It is craving, which brings renewal of being, is accompanied by delight and lust, and delights in this and that; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for being, and craving for non-being. (MN 9) When one does not know and see sounds as they actually are, then one is attached to sounds. When one is attached, one becomes infatuated, and one’s craving increases. One’s bodily and mental troubles increase, and one experiences bodily and mental suffering. (MN 149)

Reflection

The basic cause of suffering is craving, a thirst or hunger for something other than what is. These texts we are consulting will guide us through how to work with this systematically, using each of the sense modalities in turn. Today the matter at hand is sound. We hear sounds all the time, but we practice with sounds by noticing them with full awareness and then ignoring the impulse to follow or resist the sounds.

Daily Practice

Use sound as a primary object of practice. When sitting quietly, with the back erect, notice the sounds that you experience. They may be relatively loud and distinct, if you are practicing in the city, for example, but even in a silent meditation center there are gentle sounds to be discerned. Practice entails hearing these sounds and then letting them go. The key is not to become infatuated with them but to just let them pass through.

Tomorrow: Cultivating Compassion
One week from today: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Tricycle // A Profoundly Social Solitude

 

A Profoundly Social Solitude
By Lina Verchery

 

Following in the Buddha’s own footsteps, Mingyur Rinpoche left everything behind to live the life of a wandering ascetic. A new documentary tells his story.

Read more »

Via Daily Dharma: Let the Present Be Enough

  A wonderful result of letting go is experiencing each moment as being enough, just as it is.

Gil Fronsdal, “What We Gain When We Learn to Let Go”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Dhamma Wheel // Establishing Mindfulness of Body

 

RIGHT MINDFULNESS Establishing Mindfulness of Body

A person goes to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place and sits down. Having crossed the legs, one sets the body erect. One establishes the presence of mindfulness. (MN 10) One is aware: "Ardent, fully aware, mindful, I am content." (SN 47.10)   Breathing in and out, aware of long and short breaths . . . one is just aware, just mindful: "There is body." And one abides not clinging to anything in the world. (MN 10)

Reflection

Breathing is universally recommended as an object of meditation because it is always present and always changing. Sometimes it is long, sometimes short. This is not about controlling the breath but following along with it however it naturally unfolds. We are breathing all the time, but today is a good time to sit intentionally for some period of time and do nothing but be aware of breathing in and out, long and short.

Daily Practice

There is a wealth of guidelines for practice here. What does it feel like to be at the same time both ardent (intent, energetic) and content, or to be aware of the breath while not clinging to the object of awareness? These are questions to be investigated in your own experience. Sit down in an empty place, establish the presence of mindfulness, and see for yourself what these words are pointing to.

RIGHT CONCENTRATION Approaching and Abiding in the First Phase of Absorption (1st Jhāna)

Having abandoned the five hindrances, imperfections of the mind that weaken wisdom, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, one enters and abides in the first phase of absorption, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought, with joy and the pleasure born of seclusion. (MN 4)

Reflection

Absorption practice begins by finding the sweet spot in the center of the mind, the place where there is neither too much energy (restlessness) nor too little (sluggishness), neither wanting (sense desire) nor not wanting (ill will) anything. When these hindrances, along with doubt, are abandoned temporarily, the mind naturally settles down into a state of tranquil alertness and equanimity.

Daily Practice

Sit quietly and comfortably in a peaceful place and allow everything swirling around in your mind and body to gradually settle down. Like dust settling in the air or particulates settling in water, there is nothing to force or make happen. Patience will be rewarded by the experience of deeper and deeper modes of peacefulness, clarity, and stability of mind. Don’t try to measure anything; just let it all be what it is.

Tomorrow: Understanding the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering
One week from today: Establishing Mindfulness of Feeling and the Second Jhāna

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Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation // Words of Wisdom - January 2, 2022 🎆

 
 

The predicament with loving is the power of the addiction of the practice of loving somebody, of getting so caught in the relationship that you can’t ever arrive at the essence of dwelling in love. Imagine that you are cut off in your heart from love, so you feel hungry. What that hunger is, is the hunger to come home, to be at peace, to be feeling at one in the universe, where lover and Beloved merge. It’s the place to feel fulfilled, fully in the moment.  -
Ram Dass

Today's Words of Wisdom quote comes from episode 178 of the Here & Now Podcast with Ram Dass, you can listen to the full episode here.

Via White Crane Institute // THE PALMER RAIDS

 

Noteworthy

Palmer Raid headline

1920 -

If you think the Patriot Act or Donald Trump's rantings are something new, be advised of THE PALMER RAIDS which began in the United States, less than 90 years ago. The Palmer Raids were a series of controversial raids by the U.S. Justice and Immigration Departments from 1919 to 1921 on suspected radical leftists in the United States. The raids are named for Alexander Mitchell Palmer, U.S. Attorney General under Woodrow Wilson.

The crackdown on radical left-wing political groups had actually begun during WWI. After a series of bomb attacks of court buildings, police stations, churches and homes attributed to violent immigrant anarchist groups, the Department of Justice and its small Bureau of Investigation (BOI) (predecessor to the FBI) had begun to track their activities with the approval of President Wilson. In 1915, Wilson warned ofhyphenated Americans who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. Such creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy must be crushed out.

Handicapped by the secrecy of these groups and limited Federal law enforcement capabilities, the Bureau of Investigation significantly increased its workload on anarchist movements after 1917 when the Galleanists (followers of Luigi Galleani) and other radical groups commenced a new series of bomb attacks in several major American cities. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was also a background factor: many anarchists believed that the worker's revolution there would quickly spread across Europe and the United States.

On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act. The law set punishments for acts of interference in foreign policy and espionage. The act authorized stiff fines and prison terms of up to 20 years for anyone who obstructed the military draft or encouraged "disloyalty" against the U.S. government. After two anarchist radicals, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, continued to advocate against conscription, Goldman's offices at Mother Earth were thoroughly searched, and volumes of files and detailed subscription lists from Mother Earth, along with Berkman's journal The Blast, were seized. As a Justice Department news release reported: A wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda material was seized, and included in the lot is what is believed to be a complete registry of anarchy's friends in the United States. A splendidly kept card index was found, which the Federal agents believe will greatly simplify their task of identifying persons mentioned in the various record books and papers. The subscription lists of Mother Earth and The Blast, which contain 10,000 names, were also seized.

In 1919, J. Edgar Hoover was put in charge of a new division of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation, the General Intelligence Division. By October 1919, Hoover's division had collected 150,000 names in a rapidly expanding index. Using this information, starting on November 7, 1919, BOI agents, together with local police, orchestrated a series of well-publicized raids against suspected radicals and foreigners, using the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Palmer and his agents were accused of using torture and other controversial methods of obtaining intelligence and collecting evidence on radicals, including informers and wiretaps.

Victor L. Berger was sentenced to twenty years in prison on a charge of sedition, although the Supreme Court of the United States later overturned that conviction. The radical anarchist Luigi Galleani and eight of his adherents were deported in June 1919, three weeks after the June 2 wave of bombings. Although authorities did not have enough evidence to arrest Galleani for the bombings, they could deport him because he was a resident alien who had overtly encouraged the violent overthrow of the government, was a known associate of Carlo Valdonoci and had authored an explicit how-to bomb making manual titled La Salute é in Voi (The Health is Within You), used by other Galleanists to construct some of their package bombs.

In December 1919, Palmer's agents gathered 249 people of Russian origin, including well-known radical leaders such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and placed them on a ship bound for the Soviet Union (The Buford), called the Soviet Ark by the press). In January 1920, another 6,000 were arrested, mostly members of the industrial Workers of the World union. During one of the raids, more than 4,000 individuals were rounded up in a single night. All foreign aliens caught were deported, with no requirement that there be any evidence against them, under the provisions of the Anarchist Act. All in all, by January 1920, Palmer and Hoover had organized the largest mass arrests in U.S. history, rounding up at least 10,000 individuals.

Louis F. Post, then Assistant Secretary of Labor, cancelled more than 2000 of these warrants as being illegal. Of the many thousands arrested, 550 people were actually deported. For most of 1919 and early 1920, much of the public sided with Palmer, but this soon changed. Palmer announced that an attempted Communist revolution was certain to take place in the U.S. on May 1, 1920 (May Day). No such revolution took place, leading to widespread derision of Palmer. Once seen as a likely presidential candidate, he lost the nomination of the Democratic Party to dark horse candidate James M, Cox.

On September 16, 1920, a violent blast rocked Wall Street. The Wall Street Bombing killed 38 people and wounded over 400; it was never solved but was widely attributed to radical anarchists.

As Winston Churchill opined: “America always does the right thing...after it’s tried everything else.”Of course, nowadays, Tea Partiers and the Radical rightwing reactionaries can assert their right to overthrow the government with seeming impunity. Threats of armed insurrection and "nullification" (one of the main issues that precipitated the Civil War) are, it seems, commonplace in the public "discourse." Not sure if this is progress or not.

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Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute

"With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson

Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989!
www.whitecraneinstitute.org

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Via Daily Dharma: Be Your Own Boss

If you want to make your own internal experience more hospitable, only you can do that work. Others can always support and guide you and spark insights, but ultimately you are your own boss and the agent of understanding your mind and opening your heart.

Ethan Nichtern, “Awake with Others”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Via Be Here Now Network

  Jack Kornfield – Heart Wisdom – Ep. 137 – Gratitude and Generosity
December 31, 2021

  In this heartfelt dharma talk, Jack Kornfield offers us wisdom on how we can practice gratitude and generosity during these challenging and difficult times. ...

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Peace Through Music: A Global Event for the Environment | 200+ Artists U...

Via Dhamma Wheel // Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Harming Living Beings

 

RIGHT LIVING Undertaking the Commitment to Abstain from Harming Living Beings

Harming living beings is unhealthy. Refraining from harming living beings is healthy. (MN 9) Abandoning the harming of living beings, one abstains from harming living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, gentle and kindly, one abides with compassion toward all living beings. (MN 41) One practices thus: "Others may harm living beings, but I will abstain from the harming of living beings." (MN 8) A person reflects thus: "I am one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die. If someone were to take my life, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to me. Now if I were to take the life of another, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to the other either. How can I inflict upon another what is displeasing and disagreeable to me?" Having reflected thus, one abstains from the destruction of life, exhorts others to abstain from it, and speaks in praise of abstinence from it. (SN 55.7)

Reflection

This is one way of stating the Golden Rule found the world over: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It requires that we consider the feelings of another to be as important as our own. Once this insight is well understood, it becomes a matter of following your own nature rather than following a rule. You become incapable of cruelty or selfish exploitation.

Daily Practice

The practice of non-harming (Sanskrit: ahimsa) consists first and foremost of caring for others to the extent that we cannot consciously want to harm them. But notice that this teaching goes farther, also encouraging us to speak openly about the value of abstaining from causing harm. The challenge is to do this with a mind of lovingkindness. How can we condemn the causing of harm without wishing harm to those who cause it?

Tomorrow: Maintaining Arisen Healthy States
One week from today: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.

Via Daily Dharma: New Beginnings

 

That’s what this time of year is—it is the world going back to one, and reminding us that we too can do the same. It’s a chance for us to let everything go, and begin again—and not just on January 1st, but on any given day, in any given moment.

—Taylor Plimpton, “Starting Over, Again”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

VIA White Crane Institute // SIMON WIESENTHAL

 

This Day in Gay History

December 31 Born Simon Wiesenthal 1908 - SIMON WIESENTHAL was born on this date in the small Ukrainian town of Buczacz (d: 2005). Trained as an architectural engineer, Wiesenthal survived the Nazi concentration camps losing over eighty members of his extended family and dedicated the rest of his life to seeking justice for all those who died by bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. He was later celebrated as a "Nazi-hunter" and portrayed by Laurence Olivier in "The Boys from Brazil," but for many years, as Cold War governments had forgotten about Nazi atrocities, Wiesenthal was a veritable prophet in the wilderness, tirelessly working in the memory of all those who had died.  He wrote a number of bestselling books including "Murders Among Us," "Justice, Not Vengeance," and "The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness." Through his efforts countless Nazi criminals stood trial.  Without Wiesenthal's activity and vision, there would not have been war crimes hearings about Rwanda, Bosnia, or a permanent War Crimes tribunal in the Hague. For the sake of this Gay Wisdom listserve, we would point out that Wiesenthal spoke for all those who had lost their lives and was an early outspoken activist for the thousands of homosexuals who died in the holocaust, pointing out that they had all been buried together in mass graves and should all be acknowledged. Wiesenthal died of natural causes in 2005 at the age 96. Recent events remind us that we are still not out of the woods with respect to facsist politics and that we must all remain as vigilant as Wiesenthal. |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8| Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! www.whitecraneinstitute.org |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|

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Via Dhamma Wheel // Reflecting Upon Bodily Action

 

RIGHT ACTION Reflecting Upon Bodily Action

However the seed is planted, in that way the fruit is gathered. Good things come from doing good deeds; bad things come from doing bad deeds. (SN 11.10) What is the purpose of a mirror? For the purpose of reflection. So too bodily action is to be done with repeated reflection. (MN 61) When you are doing an action with the body, reflect on that same bodily action thus: "Does this action I am doing with the body lead to my own affliction?" If, on reflection, you know that it does, then stop doing it; if you know that it does not, then continue. (MN 61)

Reflection

Here we have a plain appeal for continuous mindfulness of the body. It is not a practice only for the meditation hall or focused only on breathing but is a habit of conscious living, of conscious awareness of how the body is disposed and moves. When doing something, know that you are doing it. Do one thing at a time. You might say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing deliberately."

Daily Practice

Every single thing we do can be done with greater awareness. We are so accustomed to allowing our behavior to be guided by unconscious habit so the mind can be wrapped up in something else. But this deprives us of the opportunity to guide our actions ethically. As you become consciously aware of what you do unconsciously, notice that you can intervene when necessary and tell yourself to stop any action that is unethical.

Tomorrow: Abstaining from Harming Living Beings
One week from today: Reflecting upon Verbal Action

Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media
#DhammaWheel

Questions? Visit the Dhamma Wheel orientation page.